By
Jide Uwechia
For thousands of years they have lived and prospered in Basra as rulers, administrators, musicians, and scholars. They are the black Arabs of Basra.
Their origins are varied though they obviously share one common genetic ancestor in some distance past on the shores of Africa.
Many of them are from the district of Zubair, descendants of the people who came to Iraq either from Central Arabia, or from East Africa. Some came as sailors, whereas others came as traders or immigrants or religious scholars over the course of many centuries.
Origins of the Black Basrawis
Early Origins:
Arab myths agree that the Cushitic King Nimrod crossed from beyond the waters of Ethiopia in the earliest times with a fine crop of soldiers and established what was to become the world’s oldest civilization. Many existing sites in Iraq are still named after Nimrod.
Hebrew myths recount the tale of King Nimrod as well. It is stated in the book of Genesis that Nimrod was a mighty hunter of renown and the first to begin building cities over the face of the world. He ruled in Mesopotamia, in the area covering Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.
All the ancient traditions agree that Nimrod was a black man, and that his soldiers were Ethiopians and Azanians, from what is now called East Africa.
Their descendants live in the region to this day. He was said to have built Erech, Elam, parts of Sumeria, Akkadia and Babylon. The Mesopotamian kingdoms of Sumeria, Babylon, Erech and Elam which thrived in the regions where modern Iraq covers today were thus black civilizations.
Runoko Rashidi demonstrated that the civilization of Sumer was founded by Nile valley migrants from Africa. The Sumerians called themselves the black-headed people and spoke a derivate of Semitic language, a language branch which rose initially from Ethiopia. Innumerable evidence from various cranial, skeletal, archaeological, sculptural and textual sources has confirmed the racial origins of the Sumerians as Nile valley Africans that migrated to Mesopotamia.
According to Martin Bernal, the ancient Greeks designated two populations of black people with the name Ethiopia, one approximated Elam, and one pertained to a group which lived south of Egypt. See Martin Bernal, David Chioni Moore, Black Athena Writes Back p.461.
Elam was a Kushite colony and its heartland was Susa the capital of Elam. Present day descendants of the ancient Elamites still live in southern Iranian province of Khuzestan, very dark in skin colour. Between then and the rise of Islam, different population demography drifted in and out of the Mesopotamia region wherein lies Basra.
Some of those population shifts had political and demographic consequences which bore different fortunes for the black Iraqis, and Iranians of Basra and Khuzestan respectively.
Islamic Era Black Basrawi:
The Cha’ab and the Tsiab
By the 9th century, spurred by the zeal of Islam a segment of the Afro-Arabian tribe of Ka’ab, including Ka’ab bin Rabia, a son of Beni Amir bin Za’za’ah, and Ka’ab’s sons and brothers Uqayl bin Kaab, Muntafiq bin Uqayl bin Kaab (also known as the tribe Khuza’il), Jada’ah bin Ka’ab and Kulaib and other clans of Rabi’a left the southwest of Yemamah ( north of the Rub al Khali) and migrated to Iraq and Syria to support other Arabian Muslims who had settled in those domains. See Dana Marniche (2009)
These tribes of Afro-Arabians had so consolidated their power that by the 16th century, the clans of Ka’ab son of Rabia of the Banu Amir bin Za’za’a began moving to Iran from Iraq and settled in the Khuzestan region of Southern Iran close to Iraq.
George Rawlinson a 19th century European traveler, who passed through the region and described the Cha’b (also called in recent times Chub, Ka’ab, Kub) and Montefik bin Uqayl Arabs in Iraq and Khuzestan as “nearly black” and having the dark “copper” complexion of the “Galla Ethiopians” and other Abyssinians.
Thus we see that in the late 19th century, a group of Afro-Arabian tribes were well established and living in the region of Khuzestan, Iran and around the Persian Gulf as well as Basra, and the Shott al Arab in Iraq. There were known variously as Kaab, (Cha’ab or Chub), Kuleib, Al Muntafik (or Afek), Khuza’il, Khafajah, Uqayl or Aqil, and Jada.
Many of these men are the clearly documented descendants of the Beni Amir bin Sa’sa’a of the Hawazin bin Mansour. They were described until the 20th century as “near black” in color, tall and strongly built. In Iran they are called the “Tsiab”. Many of their descendants live there even today still black in complexion.
This group of Black Iraqis are thus the remaining elements of the pure and original house of Arabia, which rose in ancient times from the Mountains of Ethiopia and migrated onto Iraqi and Khuzestan.
The Zenji of Basra
There was another smaller group of Black people, non-Muslims in out look and practice, who settled in Iraq as victims of forced labour otherwise known as slavery. They were known as the Zenji, from the land of Zanjnia (close to modern Tanzania). However it must be emphasized that there were also a great multitude of free Zenjis who had voluntarily settled in the Gulf.
The Zenji concentrated around Basra and lived co-harmoniously with their Arabian hosts. Some Zenjis worked on the plantations around Basra, doing the hard labour, while others were free traders and landowners. The Zenji took over Basra following an insurrection which took place in the mid-800s. The Zenji then ruled Basra for about 15 years, until the Islamic caliph sent troops. Many of the rebels were massacred, and others were sold to the Arab tribes.
Some under currents of racialism that one finds in present day Islamic societies developed from the fear and post traumatic stress of the reign of the Zenji in Iraq.
The Moors
Many other Black people in Iraqi came as sailors, traders, immigrants or pilgrims who decided to remain in Iraq. They came especially during the era of the Moorish Islamic Caliphate of Cordoba, Granada, and Egypt (i.e. the Fatimids).
Moors were Africans and Muslims of the Maghrib (also known as the western Sudan), who dominated Islam between the 9th and the 14th century and established a global empire reaching from Senegal to the shores of China.
Many of the Moors sailed in an ancient African ship called the dhow (or Arab dhow by western historians) which traditionally traveled the Mediterranean and Red sea coast of Africa on to Arabia, India and China.
Altogether there are more than 2 million black people in Iraq
See: http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2008/nov/basrawis/index.html
http://www.blackpower.com/politics/black-iraqis-in-basra-face-racism/
Dana Marniche, When Arabia was Eastern Ethiopia, http://www.africaresource.com/rasta/sesostris-the-great-the-egyptian-hercules/when-arabia-was-eastern-ethiopia-part-3-by-dana-marniche
See: Rashidi, “A Historical Overview,” pp. 17-19;
Rashidi, “More Light on Sumer, Elam and India,” pp. 168-169. [qtd. in The Black Presence in the Bible (pg. 152) by Walter Arthur McCray].
Drussila Houston, Ethiopians in Old Arabia
Ivan Van Sertima et al, African Presence in Early Asia
Martin Bernal, David Chioni Moore, Black Athena Writes Back p.461.
The Seven Great monarchies of the Ancient World, Vol. 1 (07) p. 35
Irooni and Babak…I would like to, if you both don’t mind, to sing a little lala bye to get you back to you slumber, because is obvious that we woke you with this adult conversation.
How, Irooni, you pretty much place your father’s ancestry in Africa a couple of times in your writing, and said he had (African blood somewhere down the line), but King Darius can’t be of African ancestry , even with his wooly afro? I’m not getting you or Babak, so is he a dark skin Caucasian? Answer me this, why all of the dislike for Africa and African?
Your ancestry is your ancestry you can’t run from that, and God said that is was good so it is good God has the last word on that, so why do you believe that Iranian could not be black? And because someone other than white happens to believe that to be true, how is that making blacks look bad? Do the falsehood that the so calls, archeologist put out are to be believed because they are White?
And Babak, the most fascinated history never in the history of the human race would be the so called white race; they are making you look really BAD!
Man kind was formed in africa, not all blacks lived and was from africa black were all over the world you just only here about the blacks in africa thats why the world thonks only blacks live or lived in africa
your totally right!! I bet if the article said Iranians had german and french roots you’d all be OVER THE MOON!! Everyone has some kind of mix in them somewhere, i myself am mixed race, and have no problem with my ancestry. However I have seen middle eastern people with blacker features than me, I have turkish, iranian, and kurdish friends who beg me to do their hair because they cant handle it, but are not afraid to show our similarities. However I also have a friend who has parents with strong african features(hair and skin colour) and because he is light he refuses to introduce his friends to them, because he fears people will say he is black. SO SAD!! Why is Colour so important?? We should just be glad to be fit and healthy, Marsahallah xx
yes jenova!!!!!
Mankind was formed where the Bible says they were made in the Mesopotania area where the Garden of Eden was where the Eurphrates river is, Around the border of present day Iraq and Iran. If you read the bibical decendents from Noah you will know where you all came from. It is very possible that original man was black because some scientists have said that black people can produce white offspring but white people cannot produce black people originally. So that would mean literally that the white race was in fact a mutation of original man. I am white and I realize that is probably the case. It makes total sense to me though because of climate concerns and survival from the sun etc. I believe the bible is the truth and therefore the most accurate explanation for all of this.
I think my Iranian friends were a little harsh. One important fact that you should know is that there are people from different races living in Iran: Persians,Kurds, Azeris, Arabs, Balouchis…. and even several thousands Africans who were either came to Iran with arabs in the middle ages or freed from Portuguese slavers around 400 hundred years ago. Cyrus the great or other Persian kings specifically describe themselves from the Aryan tribes who migrated to Iran from Caucasus region 1000 BC and have white skin. Most of Iranian are Persians or Azeris who are white and all the other races are minorities. Iranians are very proud of their culture and history which survived the invasions of Greeks, Arabs and Mongols and they get offended if someone tries to change it.
Now I love African people and their culture and I respect them dearly but using someone else’s identity so you can benefit from it is unacceptable and shameful I should know because I’m Iranian and a student of archaeology in Cambridge. And about the hair many people in Iran have wavy hair as myself and it has nothing to do with being African.
pooya tell me what school you go to so i can NEVER send my sons…we are white?? because we are persian or azeri? sounds like the typical elitism as usual. what are they teaching you in cambridge??
You (American and Americanized) White and wanna be white loving christian people are so ignorant, it’s no wonder when you travel abroad people pity you. You have no faith in your own religion….The bible tells you that Kush (Cush) and Nimrod were both Ethiopian!
If you ever should actually pray, you will probably end your prayer with ‘Amen’… When you do, you idiot…you are paying tribute to a “Black MAN” Amen Ra! You Cambridge guy if you are paying for your education you should request a refund.
Pooya
it is ok that you wanna be a so-called white..more like pinkish pale. That is your prerogative.
But answer this query for me: Were the ancient Elamites black or white? Were the Elamites the original Persians or was it the Azeris?
You may want to consult Sir Rawlinson’s book on the Elamites before answering this query.
BTW are you Azeri?
Jahdey
I don’t understand why you bother with some of these people it is clear that they are uneducated in truth and have been brought to believe the lies that have been set in motion for hundreds of years. You can show them pictures artwork or proof and because of pure blindness they will never believe you!
“There was another smaller group of Black people, non-Muslims in out look and practice, who settled in Iraq as victims of forced labour otherwise known as slavery. They were known as the Zenji, from the land of Zanjnia”
I’d like to see evidence on how large numbers of Zanj were supposedly forced to go to Iraq during those early times . Livingston said it took loads of money
“East African slave trade 1872”
http://books.google.com/books?id=A23WAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA291&dq=t#v=onepage&q=&f=false
“Every British subject taking any part, direct or indirect, in the trade, is guilty of felony ; and if this is distinctly known, and it is known also that every effort will be made by our Bombay Government to trace home to the offender any such act, and if need be, to punish it with the utmost rigour of the law, we shall have at once done much to destroy the infamous traffic. For Dr. Livingstone is no doubt perfectly right in saying that, whilst the Arabs are ready enough to find the men who will conduct the actual risks of the trade, they have not the wealth necessary to advance the capital required”
Pedram
well it may sound nonesens to you, but nubian was one of first civilisation in the world and nubian pyramids ae well known and older than egyptians. they were also able to read and write much earlier than many civilizations in europe. in many places in iran specially in center shiraz,isfahan and western kermanshah great amount of population have haplogroup K2=T
these people maybe definitly not look african , but they come to iranian plateu far ago from africa.not beause of slavery mainly because being decendants pre-aryan population of iran like elamits.sumerian and the others. nearly all known human races are coming from africa.